U.S. Pat. No. 7,156,346 to Mercier details exemplary passenger seating arrangements. The seating arrangements may comprise “a plurality of seats which can be converted into beds and disposed in rows, each row extending in the longitudinal direction of the aircraft, and each seat being oriented towards the front of the aircraft.” See Mercier, col. 1, 11. 554-57. Seat groups adjacent a wall of an aircraft include transverse passages allowing occupants of seats immediately adjacent the wall to access gangways or aisles of the aircraft. By including these transverse passages, the arrangements avoid any requirement of a passenger to “step[ ] over the adjacent passenger in order to reach the gangway when the seat of the other passenger is placed in the bed position.” See id., col. 2, 11. 9-11. The transverse passages otherwise represent unused space, however, reducing passenger density within the aircraft cabin.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,578,470 to Plant illustrates other passenger seating arrangements within aircraft. Rather than being oriented longitudinally within an aircraft, seats of the Plant patent are angled with respect to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft. Moreover, pairs of seats are disposed at opposed angles “to form essentially a ‘V’ shape,” with the distance between feet of adjacent passengers being less than the distance between their heads. An immovable center unit forward of the pair of seats provides footwells for both passengers when their respective seats are converted into beds. Hence, an occupant of a seat closest a wall of an aircraft must risk contacting the body of a sleeping adjacent passenger in order to access an aisle.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,918,504 to Thompson discloses yet other passenger seating arrangement for use on-board aircraft. Adjacent seats overlap both transversely and, at least when converted into beds, longitudinally, with a footwell of one passenger being “located beside the seat of a second” passenger. See Thompson, col. 1, 1. 41. The footwells are fixed in position, however, and “occupiers within the central position of a three-seat row (or inner positions of longer rows) need disturb” other passengers when accessing aisles of an aircraft. See id., col. 2, 11. 12-14. The contents of the Mercier, Plant, and Thompson patents are incorporated herein in their entireties by this reference.